Posted
by
timothyon Sunday June 16, 2013 @01:18PM
from the living-dead-sequel dept.

stoilis writes "Groklaw reports that the SCO vs IBM case is officially reopened: 'The thing that makes predictions a bit murky is that there are some other motions, aside from the summary judgment motions, that were also not officially decided before SCO filed for bankruptcy that could, in SCO's perfect world, reopen certain matters. I believe they would have been denied, if the prior judge had had time to rule on them. Now? I don't know.'"

You know if SCO rises from the dead one more time I might see this as the best option.

Not that likely. SCO only has two counts left, and their big claim---that they own UNIX and everything that ever looked like UNIX---is already taken care of by the Novell judgment. I think what they have left is claims for business torts, like tortious interference with contracts or something along those lines. This looks to me like the judge is opening the case back up just to take inventory: is there anything left here to fight about? If the answer is no, he will promptly toss SCO out on its ear and the w

This is one of those zombies that won't quit with a simple hit on the noggin. It's the kind you have to burn to ash, then scatter the ashes to the wind so that the ash won't try to reform a body and come after you. Hopefully, the courts will completely resolve all the claims in the case this round. It's not worth the legal cost; but, IBM should stand its ground and go after all the assets of SCO.

Any and all IP which they claim to own. Patents, trademarks, copyrights, licenses, source, legal documentation, real assets, anything that can be registered to have value and used in future court cases. Every scrap of paper. Every disk. All of it. Then lock it in a vault labelled "Danger -- Zombies -- Do NOT Open"

Any and all IP which they claim to own. Patents, trademarks, copyrights, licenses, source, legal documentation, real assets, anything that can be registered to have value and used in future court cases. Every scrap of paper. Every disk. All of it. Then lock it in a vault labelled "Danger -- Zombies -- Do NOT Open"

No. Open source the code under the BSD license. Let the world do with the source code as they will, and then it will die forever...

The problem with that theory is that IBM wins the case by proving that SCO has no intellectual property, leaving nothing to take. I don't think SCO has any remaining real assets to speak of. IBM could claim ownership of the SCO trademark but that surely has negative value by now.

Uh, wasn't Highlander: The Source even worse. A movie so heinous that it killed the whole franchise. Now, with that in mind, I would torture the zombie known as SCO just to see if they would kill themselves.

While we are probably tired of hearing about and how long this case took, I would like to see an outcome. The thing is that SCO never actually lost the case and IBM never truly won. SCO was tied up in bankruptcy and the Novell case and could not proceed. IBM isn't objecting; I think they want to destroy any remnants of SCO. Personally I would like to see happen would be the GPL tested in a case so any FUD by SCO is rejected in a ruling. Most likely SCO is likely to lose on summary judgement and the GPL issues never go to trial.

Speak for yourself. Years ago when this same case was going on I had a client implement a no GNU policy and we replaced all our Linux systems with Windows and paid the $699 per core SCO licensing fee for Linux.

The lawyers were all over this. As a result the developers were forbidden to use GNU as it could infringe on someone elses property and it the arguments were like reading the troll posts from Slashdot.

The more this shit hits the headlines in places like CIOmag or InfoWorld.com the stronger the argument agaisnt' GNU and Linux.

And where is your company today with Linux? This will once and all end things if it goes to trial.

That has been claimed before.

If history is any guide this will NOT end things once and for all. Why would you even suggest such a thing in the absence of any facts indicating this?

If you follow the money to pay the lawyers, fund discovery, and pay the enormous incidental costs, you will almost surely find that SCO, which has already declared bankruptcy, is getting outside funds, (speculation is from Microsoft), and as long as that money flows there will never be an end to this issue.

We all know SCO had no case but what we know has little bearing in legal suits. The case never ended in a settlement or decision or any kind of legal resolution. Let's say, a SCO lawyer comes up to your company tomorrow demanding their Linux royalties or they'll sue your company. If the case is resolved (and we all think in IBM's favor), your company lawyers can give comfortably give SCO lawyers the middle finger. Otherwise they'll have to do a lot of research. If SCO decides to take your company to c

The lawyers for my company and every company I've ever worked for are already well versed in handling shake downs.

A final decision, even one fully in IBMs favor, will not stop these trolls from the behavior you hypothesize.They will simply move on to another minuscule loop-hole of doubt. Remember that the lawyers own what's leftof SCO, they have nothing to lose.

Remember that the lawyers own what's left of SCO, they have nothing to lose.

and they want their payday. Since there's nothing left of SCO, they'll have to file nuisance suits from now til the Second Coming of Elvis to get even some of the money they're "owed" via settlements. They've shown they were willing to ride it out to the bitter end.

Remember that the lawyers own what's left of SCO, they have nothing to lose.

and they want their payday.

SCO's lawyers have no payday incoming. They signed a contract years ago requiring them to take this case as far as the Supreme Court if necessary, for a flat fee (which looked like a more than big enough fee back then, not so much now) which they've long since spent.

Contract was to take a big check, and in exchange, run with the legal action all the way to the bitter end.

Now, the Bankruptcy Trustee might think there's some money to be made there (I think he's wrong, but no telling, really). But the lawyers aren't getting anything but screwed by this, having to face the Nazgul for FREE.....

Windows Phone is actually a perfectly OK operating system (after many tries - we're up to WP8 after all). What it lacks is apps, and it's never going to get them because developers don't want to have to support three platforms. If they had their way they wouldn't even have to support two, but most accept that as a necessary evil to limit the monopoly power of the platform owners.

Microsoft also gets a big demerit for the way they handled Windows Phone 7. They put a big (unsuccessful) marketing push behind it

Speak for yourself. Years ago when this same case was going on I had a client implement a no GNU policy and we replaced all our Linux systems with Windows and paid the $699 per core SCO licensing fee for Linux.

The lawyers were all over this. As a result the developers were forbidden to use GNU as it could infringe on someone elses property and it the arguments were like reading the troll posts from Slashdot.

The more this shit hits the headlines in places like CIOmag or InfoWorld.com the stronger the argument agaisnt' GNU and Linux.

You did at least send a letter about it later how they spent a lot of money and fucked up a lot of projects for you for _nothing_? the lawyers should have been sued for bad recommendation... with lawyers like that who needs sco even. it's not like "GNU" is the core issue even, you could have been sued just as well for using MS.

You have a lousy legal team. Are they heavily invested in MS btw? I in fact worked for a start up where the partner in charge of tech bought only MS because he had stock in the company. Very unethical.

Basically the corporate whigs do not care about I.T. they care about risk management and keeping their jobs is the number one priority.

In a startup environment that is different. It is risk by its nature.

Unethical about using only MS because they own stock? Ethical as you can get as they own the company and are the customer. My guess is it is probably one of those media companies MS invests in to make.WMV standard. Flash came right in and ruined that.

Oh, this client got rid of secureshell because it was BSD too. I tried to explain it but they heard BSD, oh that is gnu, we aint having it.

We replaced them with an inferior solution which cost $$$$, and was repackaged ssh 2.x code. Basically all free software got lumped together as the fear was if SCO can claim ownership with something who is to say Apple or someone can't do the same with secure shell?

That's just nonsense. SCO lost ALL their lawsuits. There is NO argument against Linux - it is pervasive everywhere except the (now declining) PC desktop. A jury decided that SCO did not ever own Unix (Novell did, and retained ownership) after SCO appealed previous judgments that also said Novell was the owner.
Your lawyers advised your company badly and wrongly. My company at the time also got the letter from SCO: we binned it as the trash that it was. Virtually no-one paid the $699 extortion fee.
I

Judge Kimball already ruled on the GPL way back in 2006 or so. Back during the initial discovery phase. The GPL was upheld as being a perfectly legitimate copyright license, and the judge could find nothing wrong with it.

Maybe from a financial standpoint, perhaps.But every Apple OS is based on Opensource software that traces its roots back to Unix, and they wouldhave just as much to lose as IBM or Novel or any flavor Linux. They would not be funding their own demise.

I realize you don't need Steam to game on Linux. But it has attracted a lot of attention to Linux as a gaming platform. If Linux fails because of SCOmbies, then the publishers who don't support Linux get to say "I told you so" to the ones that do.